Push
by Chezzles.ze.Great
Summary: Love isn't supposed to be easy, but it certainly shouldn't be too hard. When Reid finally feels like he can entertain the thought of letting a new woman into his life, all the usual things get in the way.


"Studies have demonstrated that when you find it difficult to refocus or change your train of thought, it can be helpful to change your usual haunts, at least temporarily. Even just going to a different café for coffee can have a profound effect—"

Morgan pinched the bridge of his nose and cast a wearied glance over at a smirking JJ, who just shrugged as she gathered her usual pile of paperwork and tossed a computer bag strap across her shoulder, stifling a giggle. When Reid's eyes redirected to her, she played off her giggle as a gag caused by her twisted computer bag strap choking her, but he knew and instead of picking up where he'd left off at Morgan's lofty sigh, he cleared his throat noisily and shut up.

Striding into the room with an eyebrow already quirked, Hotch stopped short at Rossi's desk and reached up, wrenching his tie loose in one irritated, quick jerk. "Where's Rossi?" he asked in a tone suggesting he didn't have time for cute games or indirect answers.

"Aaron, here," Rossi answered for himself, sitting up abruptly between two desks somewhere between JJ and Reid. He rubbed one eye with the heel of his hand and frowned grumpily at Morgan's dropped jaw. "What?"

Hotch ran his fingers through his hair away from his face, tugging a couple of handfuls in exasperation before announcing, "Everyone go home and get some sleep. Or get a cup of coffee. I don't care which, but we need to hit reset if we're going to figure this out. I'm still working on the police chief, but we can't count on my people skills getting us re-invited into the case. But you guys don't worry about that, you just figure out where on Earth the unsub would take a family of five."

All eyes followed Hotch as he hazily made his way to the elevators. Disbelievingly, they watched as he jabbed the up button and leaned against the wall to await its arrival.

Arriving just a little late, Garcia swallowed a yawn and stumbled to a stop, waving a pen adorned with a plastic flower on a spring bobbling on the top. "Is he…is he awake?" she asked, jabbing the bobble towards Hotch.

Helpfully, Reid answered, "Yes, he's working on getting us back into the case. We're supposed to be 'hitting reset,' I believe." He waited in the pause that followed. "There's a dive bar about ten minutes from my apartment." Another long pause as Morgan stared at him blankly. "I think I'll go there to review my files. Maybe…get a cup of coffee."

Morgan stood up with another sigh and reached, dropping a heavy hand on Reid's shoulder. "I better come with you. And before you give me some macho thing, I'm too tired. It's more for me than you. I promise."

With a look that said he hardly believed it, Reid shut the mouth he'd opened to object to the offer and stood to collect his bag and coat. Running his fingers through an unusually unkempt mop of hair on his head, he caught up to Morgan's long strides. They took the stairs, clomping down them in silence until they burst onto the street. Blinking in surprise, Reid turned towards the Metro and offered a meek smile to Morgan, who had the same shocked, exhausted look he'd had since Rossi sat up from his nap.

"What time is it?" he asked after they'd walked a block in comfortable, silence, their breaths puffing out into white clouds.

"Just after 8, I think," Reid answered, looking back at the far side of the street where he looked for signs that the sun had set recently. "More like 9."

Groaning, Morgan stopped and threw a hand out toward the curb, trying to flag a taxi. "I can't do it, Reid. This is almost 36 hours without sleep for me. And I'm not even going to sleep!" he laughed uneasily and finally caught a cab's attention. "C'mon, I got this."

Reid slid into the back seat beside Morgan and took out his phone, quickly finding the address to the bar. The secret he kept to himself, perhaps out of exhaustion, was that he'd already stopped by this particular bar once or twice before and had sat against the back wall of the lower pit with a book for almost 4 hours. He knew for a fact they had coffee and that their kitchen remained open until almost midnight. He also knew there was a regular act on the stage at the foot of the lower pit.

The band was a five piece. They played a wide variety of songs, including some perplexing covers of classical music songs Reid was familiar with. He couldn't separate any other covers from originals with any confidence since many of the songs sounded so unfamiliar and since he was unfamiliar with most popular music anymore. The crowd seemed to recognize about half the songs, which he guessed meant the other half were originals. Tonight he considered a closer listen, both to help him "hit reset," but also because the keening, desperate tones the singer used when she sang a sad, slow song made him lose his place in his book and have to backtrack a little.

Morgan and Reid arrived at the bar, an almost literal hole in the wall called the Deeper Well, slipping in the narrow door and dropping down the steps and to the table Reid had occupied just the week before. Stretching out his legs beneath the high bar table, Morgan rubbed his eyes and looked up at the stage with a mildly horrified expression, quickly glancing at Reid to ensure the usually studious and bookish doctor wasn't fighting an instinct to flee. To his surprise, Reid had tucked his bag beneath his chair and didn't have a book or file on the table. To be fair, the joint was very dimly lit, and the various noises of the band warming up and tuning were perhaps more distracting than actual music.

His brain slowly shut down as he observed Reid taking a moment of uncharacteristically quiet reflection. The gears didn't seem to be whirring at the moment; rather than trying to start something up, Morgan sealed his lips and waved over a waitress, wordlessly conveying they both needed coffee, and quickly. The waitress disappeared, quickly returning with two ceramic mugs and a small plastic thermal pot tucked against her hip.

"Here, boys. On us," she let her eyes drop to Morgan's gun, and he quickly threw his jacket over it, forgetting for a moment that both he and Reid were just taking a break. He thanked her and looked over to Reid, smiling meekly as if to say, "Oops!" But Reid's attention was on the young lady who was gently shoving a tall, lanky guy on stage who had long hair and a shirt that was more holes than shirt anymore. There may have been safety pins, but Morgan's eyes were having trouble focusing and he didn't push them. With a booming laugh, the girl onstage, perhaps 25 with hair to her waist in big, loose curls, stepped up and leaned into the microphone.

"Are we ready?" she asked the room, empty but for Morgan and Reid.

"Yes," Reid answered in a perfectly normal voice, in a volume that Morgan had a hard time believing the woman could hear. But still, her eyes fell to his face and she smiled a wide, carefree smile that said she might have recognized him. Pointing at their table, she looked at a set-list taped to the floor by her feet. "For you, sleepies."

A close-lipped smile spread over their faces in the same slow motion as the lanky man behind her began the opening licks of a familiar, drowsy Beatles tune. She sang, she yawned, she hammed it up. The keyboard player had a good rapport with the bartenders, who screamed requests from the back. The bar filled up over the next hour, and at the first set break, the band disappeared out the back. When they returned—Morgan had no idea how much time had passed anymore—they had energy and big laughs. They sang in harmonies that were more fun than tight, but when the lead, the young lady, took over, they all kept quiet, reverent eyes trained on her, watching for cues.

"I prefer their gospel covers for some reason," Reid murmured in a rare quiet moment, his stare focused on a file Morgan hadn't noticed he'd grabbed from under their table.

Pouring the last of their coffee equally between the two cups, Morgan grunted. "I dunno, kid. Has she done one of those?"

Reid shrugged, thumbing through the photos paper clipped to the front of the manila folder. "She did an Al Green song."

"Maybe if she did Sam Smith," Morgan began, sticking a finger into his cup, frowning at the temperature of the coffee. "Or Billie Holliday."

"She's done 'Strange Fruit,'" Reid replied, but shrugged again, eyes still stuck to the folder. "Do you think instead of down, we should be looking up?"

Stretching both arms over his head, feeling too hot now that there were too many people in the bar, Morgan considered the beams lacing the ceiling over his head. He frowned suddenly, "Like a studio space?"

"Yeah, or an attic in a residential area." He set down the folder abruptly and lifted his fingers to his chin, one eye squinting shut a little more than the other. "This is the song I was thinking of, listen."

Stifling a sigh, Morgan shifted in his seat, facing the stage with a begrudging scowl. For whatever reason, the lyrics were not sinking in; he didn't feel capable of processing whatever story there was, at least as far as understanding the words went. Morgan was intelligent and musical enough to know there was more than the linguistics. There was a reason songs in other languages could move listeners. This was the case tonight, where the Texas-style blues gospel song unforgivingly laced with soaring hope spoke to him without words. The band was into it, too. The adoring looks they traded were fraternal, platonic, but the song was enough to make small hairs stand up on the back of Morgan's neck, and he cast a curious glance at Reid, who held the file as if he were reading, his face turned down to look into it, but his eyes up on the singer.

Something barreled through Morgan's foggy brain. "You like her."

Eyes flitting back down to the file, Reid shrugged again. "She's got a good voice, certainly."

"Shrug again," Morgan challenged in an edgy, rough tone. "You like that girl!"

Reid slowly rotated toward Morgan and looked up out of the file with a look he had never seen before; it was dangerous, calm, and piercing. Morgan could tell if he showed any signs of teasing or foolishness, Reid would snap, whatever that meant.

"I don't want to talk about this right now."

"Understood," Morgan replied instantly, feeling an immediate regret he'd chosen this moment to tease the poor guy. After Maeve, everyone had hoped beyond hope that Reid would heal quickly because, selfishly, it hurt them to watch him hurt. He had normalized, but Morgan doubted for a long while that he would ever open himself up the way he had with Maeve, even if it was at a distance.

Before Reid turned away, he blinked slowly, and then asked in a quiet voice, "Is she watching us?"

Morgan couldn't hide his shit-eating grin as he glanced up at the girl, smiling at her adoring fans, accepting their applause with a humility that might have surprised Morgan, if he didn't see her quick glance at their table, hopeful eyes locking for a moment on Reid to see if he was clapping, too.

"Better clap for her, kid," Morgan replied, doing so himself as he turned toward the front again, shooting her a larger than normal smirk.

The show went on for another hour and a half or so. They drank more coffee, but around the time the business was winding down and the band was packing up, Reid had gotten shaky, and he had a tolerance to caffeine that wasn't enviable. They left a few minutes before close, not wanting to be the last people inside when it was time to shut the doors. Outside, huddled in the cold beside the side entrance, the band was circled around a lone piece of music equipment. They were all smoking cigarettes, but paused their conversation when they spotted Morgan and Reid making their sluggish way to the corner where they were more likely to be spotted by a taxi.

"Hey!" the leader singer shouted unexpectedly when Reid burrowed deeper into the collar of his jacket and pretended not to have noticed them. He continued down the road with Morgan in tow, hoping he'd follow his lead and ignore the girl, but instead Morgan joyfully betrayed him and stopped, turning his full attention to the girl and her band, shooting her a winning smile.

The girl threw her butt on the ground and stepped on it with a worn moccasin, exhaling a bluish cloud as she hurried over, hands in her pockets, a pained expression on her face as she navigated the frozen puddles and small piles of packed half-melted snow. As she got closer, she slowed and dug a piece of cinnamon gum out of her pocket and popped in her mouth with a wry, half-shy wince.

"Thanks so much for coming out tonight," she started, though the gratitude in her voice sounded real to Morgan's well-trained ears. "We don't normally have a turnout that big, and you two were there from the beginning!"

Morgan nodded with a comforting laugh. "Ah, but you're great and you know it. All of you!" he called the second part louder, over the girl's shoulder to her bandmates, who lifted cigarettes with a quick chorus of thank yous.

Nodding anxiously, Reid adjusted his bag on his shoulder. "Yeah, an excellent variety of music. And uh, well performed."

She looked back and forth between the two of them quickly. "Brenna said you two are cops."

Reid laughed. "No! No, we're federal agents, with the FBI."

"Ah, different but not so different." She pursed her lips to hide a smile and scuffed a shoe over the scratch of pavement peeking out from the snow. Inhaling quickly, she looked back at her band, then back at Reid. "Do you mind if I ask you a weird question?"

Morgan was sure she'd ask him out, or maybe slip a little flirting by Reid's innocent, wide eyes, but instead she dropped one shoulder and her head hung at an odd angle, cocked to the side. After a very pregnant pause, she let out a breath neither agent knew she was holding, visibly startling an on-edge Reid.

"Sure, ask me," he finally replied, thinking she may have been irritated that he hadn't verbally answered.

"We played an original song tonight, and I can tell from the way you were listening that you're one of the only people, present company excluded," her eyes traveled for just a moment to Morgan's unoffended gaze, the back to Reid's, "who is really listening."

"Was it the sweet…sweet sunshine song?" Reid asked tentatively.

Nodding, the girl seemed to be fighting a blush. "I'm trying to play more of my own stuff, hoping to land more shows, you know. All that shit."

Reid offered a smile that pretended he knew what she was talking about, and then he frowned to himself, carefully going over his assessment, trying to recall what she had sung.

"It was prose, which I like. Sometimes the incessant need to rhyme gets on my nerves. The use of allusion and metaphor wasn't over the top; descriptions like the ones you used, the thief that stole your heart and your wallet, those are exceedingly rare. It's called a zeugma, and as far as lyrics go, the use of such a tool is indicative of a deep love of writing, language, and poetry." He looked over at Morgan as if hoping for backup, but Morgan's eyes had glassed over, showing only haughty amusement, as if he'd been proven right.

Realizing there was still silence, Reid then added, "So, kudos."

She nodded, her bottom lip tucked partially under her top teeth. "Thanks," she murmured, sounding somewhat breathless with surprise. "Will you be coming around again? Always nice to have a familiar face. Actually, it's how Gerry back there became _part_ of the band."

"Well, I have no secret ambition to join the band, but I'm sure you'll see me around once in a while. I really enjoy the ah, bar. And the music. It's a real change of pace for me." He adjusted his stance awkwardly, joints feeling stiff in the cold. Looking desperately at Morgan again, he found himself hung out to dry. Releasing a slow breath through his nose, lips pressed tight in a toothless smile, he saw that the girl had stuck her hand out, the knuckles red in the cold.

She gave him a silly look, eyes too bright, smile too practiced. She was poking fun at her own formality. "Martha Stoljarov."

"Dr. Spencer Reid," Morgan replied when Reid was too flustered to reply. Reid clumsily grabbed a hand to shake. "And I'm Derek Morgan."

Glowing with a real smile this time, Martha released Reid's hand and backed up a step. "Fantastic. Hope to see you both again next week!" She winked playfully before turning and stepping around the same puddles and mounds as before, joining her bandmates, who simply opened up their circle a little to let her back in. She was back in their conversation as if she'd never left, leaving Reid and Morgan to walk to the corner.

Reid stuck his hand out for a cab despite there not being one in sight. Morgan allowed their shared silence to stretch on until Reid uncomfortably cleared his throat. Offering a laugh to break the ice, Morgan cast a glance back to the alley and stretched, feeling the coffee coursing through him.

"Oh, Reid, you are in for it now."

"If anyone, literally _anyone_ else could have been here for that—"

"Oh no, you don't think Garcia or JJ would have had a field day? I know for a fact Rossi would have turned into a wingman—I've seen him do it!" Morgan laughed again, a big belly laugh that felt good, flooded his brain with oxygen. "Oh, if I weren't so tired I might have tried to help—"

Reid gritted his teeth and looked skyward. "That is the absolute last thing I need."

"Sure, you might want to take your time, and it's no one's business but yours but Reid, if you didn't notice," Morgan leaned close to make his point, "that girl was _into you._ If you'd made a move, she'd have let you."

It was too dark to tell if he was blushing or even paying close attention, but Morgan would have bet he was delightfully uncomfortable. Finally spotting a cab, Reid stepped off the curb and waved a twitchy arm into the street, cursing gently when the light turned off and the cab swerved away from the bar and up a side street.

The van the band had been huddled around came out of the alley beside the bar and paused for just a second before bumping over the curb and into the street, turning up the road and away down a street Morgan couldn't be bothered to worry about. As soon as the van was gone and Reid saw the empty streets go quiet, he relaxed some.

Morgan's phone started ringing. Reid's started soon after. Their eyebrows went up at the same time and Morgan groaned. "Back to work, then. C'mon, we'll find something up on the main drag here. You're getting off easy tonight, kid. I won't breathe a word. Yet."


End file.
